


Damage

by prepare4trouble



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Aziraphale, Blindness, Broken Bones, Gabriel is an asshole, Gen, Injury, M/M, Post Series, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), concussion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-14 18:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: “You like the world, don't you, Aziraphale? And your demonic boyfriend. Your books, and your... gross matter? Imagine what it would be like if you could never see any of it again.”Moments from a universe in which Crowley and Aziraphale never switched bodies, and Gabriel had a different punishment in mind for Aziraphale.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of this story has been posted previously, as chapter 4 of my fic [Alternatives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465777/chapters/48560687). Over on Tumblr I had quite a few requests for a continuation, and I couldn't post a part two in a different fic to part one. Hence the repetition of the chapter.
> 
> I only have two chapters so far, but if people appear to be interested I will definitely write more.

“You like the world, don’t you Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale hesitated, unsure how to answer. He had made it abundantly clear in his reports back to Heaven since the very beginning, and in his actions over the past eleven years or so that yes, he liked the world a great deal. After all, if he hadn’t, he would hardly have risked everything in an attempt to save it.

He just wasn’t sure whether admitting that now, tied to an office chair in Heaven’s conference room, while Gabriel and two other Archangels stood over him, was the best course of action. Maybe feigned indifference would work better.

Or perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all, and simply wait for Gabriel to continue.

He looked at the Archangel, standing over him with a smug expression on his face and realised that no, that wouldn’t work at all. Gabriel was looking down at him expectantly, waiting for a reply. Clearly the question hadn’t been a rhetorical one.

Aziraphale shrugged internally. There was no right answer here; whatever he said was bound to be a mistake. He straightened himself up as best he could while tied to an uncomfortable wheeled chair, tried to square his shoulders, then looked Gabriel directly in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

The grin that spread instantly across Gabriel’s face sent a cold spike of terror right to the centre of Aziraphale’s being, and he knew with absolute certainty that whatever happened next was going to be bad.

He hoped that he hadn’t just doomed the planet again.

“Yes?” Gabriel asked, still smiling as though he was getting everything he had ever wanted. “And you like your demonic boyfriend too, I’m sure. Your books. Your… gross matter.”

Aziraphale nodded. It was too late to take it back now, and Gabriel wouldn’t have believed him even if he had. He got the distinct impression that this entire conversation had already been planned out in Gabriel’s mind and that it wouldn’t matter what he did, or did not say, the outcome was going to be the same.

“I do,” he said, a little stiffly.

If it were possible, Gabriel’s grin grew wider still. He glanced excitedly at Sandalphon, at his side. It was clear that everything was going exactly according to plan. He turned back to Aziraphale.

“Imagine what it would be like,” he said, “if you could never see any of them again.”

“You can’t keep me apart from Crowley,” Aziraphale told him. “Not unless you plan to kill me.”

That wasn’t true, of course. It was completely within Gabriel’s power to keep the two of them apart. All he would need to do, would be to hold Aziraphale there, in Heaven, where Crowley couldn’t reach him. The demon had been snatched by the forces of Hell at the same moment that Aziraphale had been taken, and was presumably undergoing some similar treatment in Hell. If he were to be kept there too, it would be next to impossible for the two of them to find each other again.

But then, eternity, as Crowley had impressed upon him once upon a time, was a very long time. He genuinely did doubt that Gabriel would be able to keep them apart forever.

Gabriel shrugged dismissively, as though he was accepting Aziraphale’s point. “I mean, I wouldn’t have to kill _you_. I could just kill _him_ instead. But you’re right, I’m not going to do that. I’m an angel; we don’t go around killing people.” He hesitated. “Well, present company excepted, I suppose. I hear you were completely on board with killing that kid. I mean, I know he was the antichrist, but come on, Aziraphale. Murder? Really?”

It hadn’t been one of his prouder moments, and he realised now that if he _had_ managed to go through with it — if he hadn’t been sharing a body with someone who had disagreed with the course of action, and he had been able to pull the trigger unimpeded — it wouldn’t have actually helped matters at all. In fact, it probably would have made them significantly worse.

He remained silent. He couldn’t think of an answer to give, and even if he _could_, he had already established that it wouldn’t make any difference.

“Anyway,” Gabriel continued. “Killing you would be too easy, and not as much fun. See, I was talking to Lord Beelzebub about it, and they had some… alternative suggestions. Demons have a knack for that kind of thing that angels just don’t have, you know? I mean, I know they say they don’t have any imagination, but let me tell you…”

Now _that_ was worrying. Aziraphale shifted as well as he was able on the uncomfortable chair, and tried not to imagine the kinds of torment that Hell might have dreamt up for him. The human imagination described Hell as a place filled with fire and pitchforks, but he already knew that the reality was much, much worse.

“You’re working with demons?” he asked. It seemed… improbable, but he knew that it must be true. Gabriel wouldn’t lie about something like that.

The Archangel frowned. “That’s not _disapproval_ I hear, is it? You’re one to talk, my friend. You _do not_ get to judge me, you _pathetic_ excuse for an angel.”

His voice grew more powerful as he spoke; not louder, but more forceful, and Aziraphale tried not to tremble at the holy power behind it. He stared straight ahead, his expression blank. Terror curled in the stomach and chest of the human body that he was wearing, but he refused to let it show. He refused to give Gabriel the satisfaction.

“So,” Gabriel continued, back to his usual tone, “Beelzebub suggested we make you Fall. It’s been a while since an angel Fell, you know. Turns out the punishment department down there is eager to get a new recruit to pressure into service. And on a personal note, I’d be _fascinated_ to see what you’d look like as a demon.” He turned to Sandalphon. “What do you think? Fangs? Horns? Some of them actually have horns, you know.”

Sandalphon shrugged. “Maybe he’d be all snakey too. They could match.”

“Snake eyes! Yes!” Gabriel laughed gleefully. “Well, whatever he got, it’d make it difficult for him to keep on running that bookshop, passing for human. I can’t imagine I believed it was just a cover. He _loves_ it. Just as much as he loves the demon.” He shuddered. “Gross.”

Aziraphale wondered how fast he could get the wheels of the office chair to move if he tried to propel it across the floor by moving his feet. Not fast enough, probably. “Well, Angels are beings of love,” he reminded them. Although, to look around this room it was very difficult to believe that.

“Love of the _Almighty_,” Sandalphon corrected. “Not of demons, and human artefacts, and food.”

Gabriel nodded. “Well said. Now that I think about it, maybe we should change the plan. How do you think he’d like it if he couldn’t taste anymore either? Is that something we could do?”

Sandalphon folded his arms and looked thoughtful. “Trickier,” he said. “It’s a mortal body thing, so all he’d need to do would be to change the body. There’s even a chance he or the demon would be able to heal him.”

Gabriel looked supremely disappointed at that. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll just stick to the plan, then.”

Aziraphale couldn’t stand this any longer. He knew it was exactly what Gabriel wanted, but he found himself asking before he could stop himself. “And the plan is what, exactly?”

The Archangel smiled down at him condescendingly and continued with his spiel. “Well, we decided you wouldn’t Fall, because that would only serve to bring you and the demon closer together,” he told him. “Don’t worry, we’re going to keep it in reserve though, in case you step out of line again. Do you know the difference between demons and angels, Aziraphale?”

He let the question hang in the air for only a fraction of a second, not long enough for Aziraphale to come up with an answer, before he continued.

“Demons can’t sense the Almighty. They can’t feel her love. Have you ever thought about what that would be like, Aziraphale? Or maybe you don’t have to, you could just ask… what’s his name? Crawly. It’s going to be very dark in your world soon; can you imagine what it would be like if it were cold and empty too?”

He knew that Gabriel was only drawing this out to torture him; to make the whole thing so much worse. It was probably a tip from Hell. He refused to give in to the urge to beg for clarification. If his arms were free, he would have folded them, as it was, he glared up at the Archangel and tried not to look afraid. “I’m quite sure I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“No,” Gabriel told him. “No, I know you don’t.” He was smiling in a way that Aziraphale _really_ didn’t like. “So, we were brainstorming how to do this. I mean, if the human body you’re in gets damaged, you suffer the effects, but like Sandalphon here said, that can be healed. Even if we fix it so you can’t do it yourself, maybe your boyfriend in the shades can pull some… hamster… out of his hat.”

“Rabbit,” Aziraphale corrected. He didn’t particularly want to participate in this conversation anymore, but he couldn’t sit by as Gabriel got such a basic aspect of magic wrong.

Gabriel waved a hand dismissively. “Rabbit, right. Anyway, damaging the vessel won’t help in the long-run, so I thought… damage the celestial body instead.” He turned to his right. “That sound good to you, Sandalphon?” He turned back to Aziraphale, “Smiting’s his department, as you know.”

“Erm…” Aziraphale said. He didn’t like the way this was going. Not that he had expected to like the way this conversation went, but he _really_ didn’t like it. “Damage?” he asked. “You’re going to _damage_ me?”

“Yup. You’re going to like this… well, no. You’re going to hate it, but _I’m_ going to like it. “Now, wounding the celestial body is a little trickier, but we came up with something. Well, Beez did. Hellfire!” he smiled like a gameshow host introducing the top prize. “If it gets bright enough, I think we can burn out every one of those eyes of yours.”

A chill passed through him; a coldness so deep within him that it felt as though his very soul was turning to ice.

“I wonder if you’ll keep the bookshop.” Gabriel mused as he turned to leave. “I mean, once you can’t read the books, will there really be any point?”

As he and the other angels walked away, a demon entered the room. He glared menacingly at the three retreating angels. Eventually, his gaze fell on Aziraphale, still tied to the chair in the middle of the room. Aziraphale wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have detected a flash of sympathy in the demon’s eyes. It was gone as soon as he noticed it. Probably his imagination.

“We’ll be outside,” Gabriel said to the demon, who, with a wave of his hand, lit a fire in the centre of the room. “Give us a shout when it’s safe for us to come in and collect him.”

Aziraphale wanted to shout after them; to beg and plead for them to reconsider. The words died in his throat; he knew that it would do no good. Their minds were made up, and had been made up long before they had brought him here. There was no hope for mercy. Not from Gabriel.

The only thing that he could do now, was to try not to let them see his fear.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to have been so long getting out another chapter of this. When I first posted it, I had another part good to go, (it's on tumblr if you want to read it but it'll end up here eventually in some form) and a third planned, but they are set months in the future from chapter one, and I realised that I wanted to tell the whole story rather than skipping to the end.

The escalator that Aziraphale usually used to enter and exit Heaven was not the only way in or out. Although the Archangels that had snatched him had taken him that way and paraded him through the lobby to ensure that he was seen by as many angels as possible, they had chosen to leave by another, much more ancient, means of transportation.

Aziraphale had to admit to being slightly relieved, both that he was to be returned to Earth at all, and that Gabriel had opted not to show off what he had done. Aziraphale didn’t think he could have stood being dragged through Heaven and then London, unable to see where the Archangels were leading him.

There was no sensation of movement, no wind whipping through his hair or whistling in his ears, because there was no air; for a moment, it was gone and he found himself traveling in a vacuum. He, and the Archangels that had accompanied him, were deposited on Earth with a ‘pop’ sound as the air rushed in to fill the vacuum they had brought with them.

Aziraphale flexed both of his hands as he fought the urge to adjust the cuffs of his jacket and smooth down his suit. With an Archangel holding onto each arm it would have been quite impossible, and he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of feeling him struggle against their grip. Especially because if he did, they might simply oblige and let him go. The moment their hands were no longer holding onto his arms, he would no longer know where they were.

There was something particularly disquieting about that idea. Especially in the case of Sandalphon, who had always made him, if it were possible, even more nervous than Gabriel did. Although he decided he may need to reassess that thought now that he knew what Gabriel was capable of.

A further thought occurred. Once the Archangels released their grip on his arms, he would no longer know where _anything_ was. He would be cast adrift in a sea of darkness, and that idea was absolutely terrifying.

He held his eyes closed, as he had since the moment the light of the hellfire had grown too bright for him to stand. He had slammed them shut and turned away as best he could, but it had made no difference. The light had eventually faded to black even while he could still hear the fire burning, leaving nothing but a dull ache in his eyes.

He could open them, but he didn’t. The moment he did, and he found still more darkness on the other side of his eyelids, that was the moment when he would know, with absolute certainty, that what had been done to him was real.

It wasn’t a moment that he wanted the Archangels to witness.

“Okay, all set?” Gabriel asked. His voice sounded cheerful, like a parent dropping off a child at a friend’s house for the night, already anticipating some long overdue alone time, and wanting to ensure that they wouldn’t get a call in the middle of the night telling them the kid had forgotten his toothbrush.

He also sounded very pleased with himself, and Aziraphale tried very hard not to imagine the smug expression on his face, but it was an impossible task. It had, after all, been one of the last things he had seen.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he held himself very still, facing straight ahead in the same way he had in Heaven, not acknowledging their presence, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing his fear.

He suspected they could see it regardless.

“I’m going to go ahead and assume the silence means ‘yes’,” Gabriel said. “So, we’re just gonna drop you off here, okay?” He didn’t bother to wait for a reply this time. His hand dropped away, leaving only Sandalphon, holding his other arm. A moment later, taking his cue from Gabriel, he, too, broke contact and disappeared.

They were still there, standing just feet away. Aziraphale was aware of their presences, but beyond that, nothing. He kept his eyes closed, refusing to open them. Not yet. Not while Gabriel was there.

“So, it goes without saying,” Gabriel said, “but I’m going to say it anyway. You’re done, Aziraphale. You’re cut off. I couldn’t get permission to make you Fall, not just yet, but stay out of Heaven anyway. We don’t want you there anymore. And you should watch yourself, because one wrong step and you _will_ find yourself taking a bath in molten sulphur.”

“He can’t,” Sandalphon, interjected.

Aziraphale put effort into keeping his breathing slow and steady, refusing to show any sign of weakness now. He faced forward and kept his expression as blank as he could manage.

“Can’t what?” asked Gabriel, and Aziraphale could hear the irritation at being interrupted in his tone.

“Watch himself. Or anything, actually.”

There was a pause as the comment settled. Aziraphale felt himself flinch, and knew that the Archangels must have seen it. Finally, a burst of laughter from Gabriel broke the silence and the Archangel clasped him so hard and so unexpectedly on the shoulder that Aziraphale stumbled and almost fell backward. “He’s right, you know,” Gabriel told him. “You can’t. Very good, Sandalphon!”

Aziraphale righted himself and resumed his pose, a little more shaken than he had been before. The hand on his shoulder disappeared again.

“Okay, bye,” Gabriel said, and just like that, the two other angelic presences were gone, and he was alone.

Aziraphale didn’t move. Still with eyes closed, he tried to force himself to think. They had returned him to the bookshop, he knew that much. He would recognise the place anywhere. It wasn’t only the distinctive smell of old books, the accumulated dust of two hundred or so years, and the ticking of the old grandfather clock that he had bought not long after he opened of the shop, but also the sense of love that filled every inch of the place. It was unmistakable, and would have been impossible to duplicate.

What he _didn’t_ know was exactly where in the bookshop he might be. Still standing very still, he reached out with one hand, into the darkness before him. He swept it through the air, touching nothing. He tried again, reaching in another direction this time. Again, nothing.

He took a deep breath. He had no excuse to put it off any longer, he needed to try to see. Perhaps the damage wasn’t as bad as Gabriel had planned. Perhaps he would still be able to see something, but there was only one way to find out. He took a moment, steeling himself, then carefully opened his eyes.

Nothing. The same expanse of nothing that he had seen with eyes closed, only it felt so much worse now, so much bigger, more oppressive, more frightening. He felt his eyes — the undamaged human eyes of the body that he was wearing — instinctively straining to see, trying to pick up anything; some hint of light, a shadow, the difference between light and dark. He found nothing at all.

Disorientation hit him hard. He reached out again, panicked hands trying to grab at anything he could find. He turned, and a wave of dizziness struck him. With no point of reference to ground him, he couldn’t make it stop. He took a careful, shuffling step, barely lifting his feet off the ground; the only thing in the shop other than himself that he could locate. His hands flew frantically from left to right, trying to find anything.

As he tried to walk, he realised that he was trembling. His entire body, but his legs in particular, were shaking as though he had been on his feet for weeks. Adrenaline, he supposed, caused by fear and panic. A side effect of inhabiting a human body was that everything he felt, he felt so much _more_. Sometimes that had been a good thing. Right now, it really, really wasn’t.

Suddenly exhausted, more tired than he remembered ever having been before, he surrendered to the need to sink down to the floor. Somewhere in the shop, somewhere not far away to his left, the telephone started to ring. If he had the mental energy to think, he knew he might have been able to use that in some way, either to work out where he was, or to get somewhere else. But he didn’t, and so he remained where he was, sitting on the floor of the bookshop, surrounded by books that he couldn’t see, and that he would never be able to read again.

Gabriel’s cruel taunt pushed itself unbidden into his mind. _“I wonder if you’ll keep the bookshop? Once you can’t read the books will there be any point?”_ He tried to ignore it, but the Archangel had been right.

He blinked hard, screwing his eyes closed before opening them wide. He repeated the move a few times, blinking almost compulsively, as though if he just kept at it, he could clear his vision and begin to penetrate the darkness. It didn’t work, the world remained completely, utterly, devastatingly, black.

“Oh…” he said to himself. He backed up a little, scooting backward across the floor of the bookshop in what he imagined to be a very undignified way. His back touched a wall behind him, and he relaxed, just a little, finding there was something in his world other than the floor and the ringing of a telephone. He tried reaching out to one side, and his fingers brushed the spines of several books on a shelf. A fresh wave of despair washed over him.

No. He needed to stop. He needed to quell the panic and stop himself before he sank into despair. He was an angel, for Heaven’s sa… he was an angel. He had fought in Heaven’s first great war and prevented a second. He had wielded a flaming sword and guarded the eastern gate of Eden. He had faced things that would have sent most angels screaming back to Heaven. He had stood before Satan himself, and he was _not_ going to be defeated by this.

He was not afraid of the dark.

Only, yes, he realised. He was.


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley hurt. His head throbbed so violently that it made him want to vomit. The light stung his eyes, and the room somehow refused to stand still. It spun and tilted viciously, as though determined to keep him where he was, laying on the ground where he had collapsed the moment the floor of his flat had spat him out like some indigestible morsel of food.

He closed one eye against the double vision, then the other in the hopes that darkness would soothe the pain in his head, then opened them again when he found that the sensation of the room spinning was worse when he couldn’t see it. It was like being drunk and hungover at the same time, only worse, because being drunk or hungover didn’t usually involve cracked ribs, open wounds, broken bones and a very probable concussion.

All he wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep for a century or so, until the injuries from the beating he had received in Hell had healed and the room had stopped spinning. Unfortunately, whoever it was that had returned him to Earth had chosen for him to burrow through the floor of his office, not his bedroom. Moving from one to the other felt like it would be an impossible task.

He needed a miracle, but not one of his own. Healing one’s own body was difficult, and Crowley didn’t want to risk doing it wrong. He needed a miracle from somebody else, and of course the only being he knew that might be both willing and able to do it for him was…

He froze, still sprawled on the floor, as cold dread washed over him. He didn’t know where Aziraphale was. The angel had been taken at the same time that he had. As he had been dragged down into Hell, he had seen a group of angels snatch Aziraphale and pull him up into Heaven to face whatever judgement they might have in mind for him.

And Crowley knew all too well how Heaven dealt with angels that refused to toe the company line.

He needed to get to him. Even if it meant he needed to go back to Hell, he needed to find him.

He rolled over onto his side and tried to get to his feet, but he was stopped by a searing flash of agony from his left leg. He remembered the grin on Hastur’s face as the demon had brought his heel down hard on the shin, and the sound as he had heard the bone break.

He hissed in pain. He was going to have to at least try to heal _that_ if he had any hope of getting off the floor. He concentrated as much of his energy as he could muster on knitting the fracture, but performing any miracle at all was difficult when the room refused to stay still. At least three of his fingers were broken, which made clicking them an impossibility. Not that a finger click was necessary for a miracle of course, but he found that it helped focus his concentration, and right now he could have used some focus.

The pain eased slightly. It was an imperfect mend; he could still feel a dull, aching pain from the break, but it faded into the background in comparison to the other injuries. He tried to wiggle his toes, and they obeyed his command. Tentatively, he tried to put some weight on the limb, then began to drag his aching, protesting body to its feet.

The room lurched violently to the left and he staggered and almost toppled back to the ground. He righted himself by grabbing hold of the throne-like chair he had placed in the office, and closed his eyes against the wave of nausea that washed over him. He realised that his ears were ringing; a high-pitched whining, louder and a slightly higher pitch in one than the other.

He reached over the desk and picked up the phone. Maybe, just maybe, Aziraphale was okay. Maybe he hadn’t Fallen after all. Maybe all the angels had wanted was to have a polite chat with him before they delivered him safe and sound back to the bookshop. Or maybe he _had_ Fallen, but had landed on Earth rather than in Hell. Or maybe the angels had taken a leaf out of Hell’s book and simply beaten him senseless and deposited him at home.

No, not that. He couldn’t imagine angels doing that. They had more imagination than the average demon.

But Crowley had an imagination of his own, and he knew how to put it to use. The phone on the other end of the line began to ring, and he wondered whether maybe, if he imagined hard enough, he would be able to _make_ Aziraphale be there and pick up. His imagination had come through for him before, after all.

But not this time. There was no reply, nothing but the continuous ringing at the other end of the line. The angel didn’t even have voicemail, or an answering machine. Crowley couldn’t even shout a message, something to let Aziraphale know, if he did happen to be there, that he was trying to reach him.

Aziraphale was going to make a terrible demon. Not only that, but he was going to hate it, and not in the ‘no job satisfaction’ way that most demons hated it. It would be deeper than that. The loss would be a wound that would never heal, leaving him feeling empty and alone, and Crowley feared that it would break the angel so badly that he would never recover. Many hadn’t.

He leaned heavily against both the desk and the chair as he continued to listen to the ringing of the telephone at the other end of the line. With every ring, he grew more and more certain that the angel wasn’t there; that he was in fact, in Hell, trying to find his way out of a pool of molten sulphur.

He needed to get there; to the bookshop. If Aziraphale was on Earth, he would make his way there, and if he wasn’t there, Crowley would at least know that he needed to start looking elsewhere. He didn’t relish the thought, but he would march back into Hell if he needed to.

Although, unless he could find the strength to miracle himself better, it was probably going to be more of a limp into Hell, possibly with a few falls along the way and the distinct possibility of discorporation from his injuries.

He had never been more happy to see the Bentley than when he staggered out of the door of his building onto the street. He had known it was there, of course. He had seen it the day before, recreated, without a scratch on it, looking almost exactly as it had on the day that he had bought it. Still, the way his luck had gone since yesterday, he had half expected that Adam might have recreated the car with the key in the ignition and that some opportunistic thief had driven it away while he had been busy receiving a beating.

Thankfully, he had been returned in the middle of the night and not the middle of rush hour, and the streets were almost deserted. He made it to the bookshop in record time, swerved the car violently across the road and mounted the curb facing in the wrong direction. The Bentley’s brakes screeched in a way that, on any other day, Crowley might have worried about. Today, he had more important things on his mind. He opened the door and fell out onto the pavement. It was at that point that he remembered he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses; they had been taken from him and presumably destroyed by one of the demons that had delivered his beating.

From his position, laying ground outside the bookshop with the damp of a recent rain shower soaking through the fabric of his jeans, Crowley weighed the pros and cons of getting back in the car in the hopes that Adam had also recreated the contents of his glove compartment. The cons won, and he pushed closed the car door with his foot, then climbed to his feet, and almost fell again as he staggered into the shop.

“Aziraphale?” he called. His voice didn’t exactly echo around the building — there was too much clutter and too many books for the sound waves to get a good bounce going — but it did seem to disappear into nothing in a way that he didn’t think it did normally.

Although, that might have had something to do with the ringing in his ears.

He closed his eyes in anticipation of the glare when he switched on the lights in the shop, but found himself hissing in pain anyway as the sudden burst of artificial light sound even though his eyelids. The pain was accompanied by another wave of nausea and he wished, briefly, that he had decided to check the Bentley for spare sunglasses. It was too late to go back now, so he gave himself a second or two to recover, then opened one eye just a crack.

His head throbbed even harder than before, and he was certain that if he didn’t sit — or better yet lie — down soon, his body would decide to take matters into its own hands and he would pass out.

He might even discorporate, and land back in hell minus his corporation for the beating to commence all over again. In fact, he wouldn’t put that kind of a plan past someone like Hastur, though it wasn’t Beelzebub’s usual style. The Prince of Hell hadn’t been directly involved in the beating though, so perhaps ze had left the specifics up to the demons that were.

The nausea wasn’t getting better, and as a demon he could see in the dark anyway. He reached for the light switch again, meaning to plunge the shop back into darkness, when he noticed, in the corner of the room, a figure sitting with his back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest, hunched in on himself.

Crowley squinted, trying to decide whether it was real, or some kind of hallucination. The figure was dressed in Aziraphale’s usual white and beige ensemble, and on second, and on third look, still very much resembled the angel. He tried opening his other eye, but that only resulted in there being two angels sitting on the floor of the bookshop, and that made even less sense than there being one.

Because there definitely was one.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley exclaimed. He rushed over to the figure, concussion and aching body forgotten for one brief moment.

Aziraphale tensed, but didn’t move. He angled his face downward, not looking up at him. “Crowley?” he asked the floor between his feet.

“Yes it’s me, you idiot. Who else would it be?” Crowley reached down and tried to pull the angel to his feet, but some combination of Aziraphale’s reluctance to stand, coupled with Crowley’s own weakness from the beating, somehow ended up with him on the floor, right next to him.

“I…” Aziraphale moved just slightly, head raising, then dropping again almost instantly. “It’s not a good time, Crowley,” he said. “Give me a few days to get myself used…” the words disappeared, as though his throat had constricted, choking away his voice. “Used to things,” he finished.

Crowley hesitated, unsure how to proceed. “I, uh… what thi…” he began, then stopped. It didn’t matter. “I’ll help you with it… with them,” he said. “The things.” Whatever they might be.

He should be able to sense it if there was anything demonic about the angel, but he was getting nothing. Of course, that might not mean anything. Right now, he doubted he would be able to sense anything from Satan himself; all he could feel was his own pain, nausea, and the sensation of the room spinning.

He realised he had closed his eyes again. Relief at finding the angel — if that was still what he was — alive and intact had given him a momentary boost, but his injuries were reasserting themselves and his headache growing worse again. He cracked open one eye again and looked at Aziraphale, assessing him for damage.

That he was in the bookshop and not currently trying to do the front crawl out of a pool of molten sulphur was an encouraging sign. In fact, other than the fact that he was currently sitting on the floor, nothing much appeared to be amiss. There was no whiff of brimstone about him. He had no horns, or claws. He still appeared to be very much Aziraphale-shaped, with no scales, fur or fangs and, most importantly, no creature atop his head.

He was still able to form coherent words too, although he wasn’t speaking as much as he usually did. The first thing most new demons had done, following their descent into Hell, had been to scream, or to sob inconsolably. Crowley could still hear the sound of it sometimes, echoing around the caverns of Hell, and around the recesses of his own memory.

Falling wasn’t simply changing from one state of being to another. It was a loss so deep and profound that some never recovered. Falling ripped out an angel’s divinity, permanently severed their connection to the Almighty and took away their ability to sense love. It took from them everything that made them angels, and left behind little more than a shell filled with pain, betrayal, and anger. It took time to come back from something like that. The kind of time that lasted entire human lifespans, and those that did come back were never the same beings that they had been as angels.

If Aziraphale _had_ Fallen, his was the gentlest landing that Crowley had ever seen.

Although, if not that, _something_ was definitely very wrong. Aziraphale didn’t sit on the floor. Well, not unless you count sitting on a blanket in the park while they had a picnic, but Crowley didn’t count that. It wasn’t exactly the same thing as sitting on the floor of the bookshop a few steps away from a chair.

It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen Aziraphale’s eyes yet. The angel had been deliberately directing his gaze away from him. Not all demons showed their demonic nature in their eyes, but most did, in one form or another. It was likely that if he had Fallen, there would be some difference there. He reached out and touched the angel on the arm. “Aziraphale,” he said. “Look at me.”

Aziraphale responded with a sound. A strangled sound caught halfway between a bitter laugh and a sob. He did not move. His eyes remained closed and his face turned downward.

“Aziraphale, please,” Crowley tried. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s not.”

His voice trembled in a way that Crowley had never heard from him before, not once over the course of their entire friendship. Not when he had realised that giving away a flaming sword to a couple of humans might get him into the Almighty’s bad books, nor any one of the times over the course of human history when he had been convinced that he was about to be discorporated. Not even when Satan himself had been rising through the earth toward Tadfield and they had mere seconds to come up with a plan.

A knot of frustration began to form in Crowley’s chest. He couldn’t help if Aziraphale wouldn’t tell him what was wrong. “What did they do?” he tried. “Did they hurt you?” He didn’t _look_ hurt. Not like Crowley was, at least.

The angel appeared to hesitate, then nodded. “But it only hurt for a moment,” he said.

“That’s… good?” Crowley tried. Riddles and hints were getting him nowhere. He didn’t think Aziraphale was being deliberately evasive, but he was doing a good job of it nonetheless. “I wish I could say the same. But _what_ doesn’t hurt? What did they…”

“You’re hurt?” Aziraphale interrupted. He looked up at that briefly. Head moving to face in Crowley’s direction, to assess him for damage. Briefly, his eyes slipped open, but closed again immediately, before Crowley had the chance to see them, to check them for signs of anything demonic. He reached out with a hand, searching for Crowley’s arm and gripping it tightly when he found it.

If the angel would just open his eyes and _look at him_, he would have been able to see that he was hurt. Crowley winced as Aziraphale’s hand accidentally pressed into a bruise hidden underneath the tattered wreck of his shirt. At least the room wasn’t spinning quite so much now that he was sitting on the floor, and at least he didn’t feel quite so sick now that he knew the angel hadn’t been sent down into Hell.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale prompted. “You’re hurt?”

“Just a concussion,” he said. “A few broken bones.” He adjusted his position on the floor and winced. “Maybe a bit of internal bleeding.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale admonished. He shook his head as though in disbelief. “Why on Earth didn’t you say?”

The hand gripping Crowley’s arm moved down without breaking physical contact, until he was holding his hand instead. Aziraphale’s hand was warm to the touch. It lingered there for a second, as though somehow assessing the damage through heavenly means. Then, with no warning, no finger click or hand motion, the pain was ripped away.

For a moment, the sudden absence of pain hurt as badly as the pain itself. If left behind a vacuum of sorts, and for a moment, he could feel nothing at all. Crowley gasped at the sudden absence. Sensation filtered back slowly over several seconds until he could feel again. “Warn me before you do something like that!” he said.

The corners of Aziraphale’s lips quirked into the tiniest of smiles. “I can undo it, if you would prefer,” he suggested.

He wasn’t serious. Or, was he? For a moment, Crowley couldn’t tell. “Uh, no,” he said, just in case. “That’s okay.” He blinked, then turned his head slowly from left to right, enjoying the lack of pain and absence of nausea, and particularly enjoying the way the room stayed still rather than turning and tilting. The ringing in his ears was gone, as well as the double vision. He felt like himself again.

He turned his gaze to Aziraphale, sitting next to him on the floor with his back to the wall. Through the clarity that no longer being in pain brought him, he knew instinctively that the angel had not Fallen. He could sense nothing of Hell in him. He allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. Whatever was wrong — and he was just as certain now as he had been before that something was wrong — whatever was wrong, at least it was not _that_.

“Right,” he said. “What’s going on? What did that arsehole do to you?” Crowley was getting a Very Bad Feeling. Being a demon, he was used to bad feelings, and there were times when he quite enjoyed them. This was not one of those times. This one was particularly uncomfortable. It started as a prickling sensation on the back of his neck and moved around and down his body until it settled in the pit of his stomach as a hard lump. “Why won’t you look at me?”

Aziraphale flinched, then appeared to steel himself. He drew in a deep breath, chest expanding as his lungs filled with air, then exhaled slowly as he opened both of his eyes. Even still facing down to the ground, Crowley noticed the flicker of disappointment that clouded his expression, as though he had been hoping for something to happen and it had let him down. He smoothed it away before he turned his face toward Crowley and smiled sadly.

Crowley looked at him, staring into the angel’s eyes, searching for any final clue as to what had happened to him, but they looked exactly the same as the last time he had seen them. He hadn’t really expected to see anything demonic there, not now that he was healed and he could sense it again, but it was still a relief to see further evidence that he was right.

“You bastard,” he said with a smile to let Aziraphale know that he was, at least partly, joking. “They’re fine. Why were you hiding them? I thought you’d Fallen and you didn’t want me to know.”

Aziraphale blinked twice in rapid succession and allowed his gaze to drift downward, unfocussed. “As I understand it, Gabriel couldn’t get permission for a Fall,” he said. “So he had to resort to other methods.” He blinked again, like there was something in his eye that he was trying to clear.

“Other methods of what, exactly?” Crowley leaned forward, staring into Aziraphale’s eyes. Aziraphale didn’t react. The Very Bad Feeling expanded, becoming a cold certainly.

“Of punishing me, I suppose,” Aziraphale said.

Slowly, carefully, so as not to disturb the air around them, Crowley reached out a hand and passed it before Aziraphale’s eyes. The angel gave no reaction at all; his eyes didn’t move to follow the motion, he didn’t flinch back, he didn’t appear to notice at all.

He couldn’t _see_ it.

Crowley opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a strangled sound that even he couldn’t recognise as words. He shook his head; a short, sharp movement as though he could shake loose the language centre of his mind, then tried again. “Wha… what did he… how…”

Aziraphale folded his arms and pulled his legs in a little closer to his chest, as though he was trying to make himself as small as possible. “He was so pleased with himself,” he said, in a small voice. “I think that’s the worst part.”

That was definitely _not_ the worst part, but Crowley felt a burst of anger at the thought anyway. “I can fix this,” he said. There were very few things that a well-applied miracle couldn’t fix. He snapped his newly healed fingers, calling on demonic power straight from the centre of Hell. He concentrated on the angel’s eyes, on healing. On making him see.

Nothing happened.

No, it was worse than that. It was as though there was nothing _to_ fix.

He scowled, then tried again, pulling even more power out of Hell. Power that had never been intended to heal, but that he could twist to any use he saw fit. He felt it rush through him, burning as it entered his body. It hurt, to hold onto that much raw energy, but the miracle would be worth it.

But again, nothing.

He tried again, and again. And ag…

“Crowley, stop it,” Aziraphale told him. “You can’t. He didn’t do anything to my physical body, he injured my true form. And he used hellfire to do it.”

Using that new piece of information, Crowley attempted to focus the healing miracle. He pulled more power than he had ever wielded before out of Hell. More, even, than he had in Tadfield when he had stopped time. Again, nothing happened. The demonic power, with nowhere to go, filtered away into the world, probably to cause all kinds of minor irritations in London and the surrounding area that morning, and Crowley let out a cry of frustration. He prepared to try again.

Both of Aziraphale’s hands closed around Crowley’s, stopping the finger click before it could happen. “You can’t,” the angel repeated. “You know that. Hellfire, Crowley. You’re just going to exhaust yourself.” His hands tightened a little around Crowley’s. “You’re already shaking.”

So was Aziraphale. Crowley could feel it through his touch. Crowley closed his eyes and offered up a silent prayer to anybody that happened to be listening. “I’m going to kill him,” he said. “I’m going to march up there into Heaven and I’m going to…” he broke off. “No, I’m going to make him fix this, _then_ I’m going to kill him.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “Gabriel can’t fix it any more than you can, Crowley.”

“One of the other ones then. Or we’ll take it higher. Archangels aren’t really in charge up there, are they? Not unless a lot’s changed since I was…” he stopped again. He didn’t talk about his time as an angel. He didn’t think about it, not if he could help it, but he knew for certain that back then, the Archangels hadn’t been in charge. There was a higher authority, not only God herself, but legions of angels ranked higher than Gabriel.

And if he had to take it to the Almighty herself, he would do it.

“Hellfire,” Aziraphale repeated, as if that said it all. And it did. Just as a demon could not recover from a wound inflicted by holy water, an angel was similarly susceptible to hellfire. Aziraphale was right; there was nothing that anybody could do.

With his free hand, he gripped Aziraphale’s and squeezed gently. “I’m going to kill him,” he repeated. It was a promise that he completely intended to follow through.

Aziraphale, who would ordinarily have admonished him for that kind of talk, even if it _was_ about Gabriel, didn’t comment on the threat. Instead, he pulled his hand free of Crowley’s and climbed carefully to his feet. With one hand touching the wall, he reached out into the room with the other. His head turned as though searching the room, and finding nothing, he took a series of shuffling steps, barely moving his feet from the ground. When he was far enough from the wall that he could no longer maintain contact with it and keep moving forward, he hesitated, licked his lips, and swallowed slowly.

“Before you do,” he said, “Could you possibly help me to a chair and get me a cup of tea? I fully intend to learn how to do these things for myself, but for now I might need a little help.”

Crowley was on his own feet in an instant. He gripped Aziraphale by the hand and carefully led him across the room to the seat by his desk. As the angel sank gratefully into the chair, Crowley disappeared into the well-stocked kitchen.

Tea. At least that was something that he could do.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are loved, let me know what you thought ♥
> 
> [Come and say hi on Tumblr](http://prepare4trouble.tumblr.com), if you're into that kind of thing.


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